Tangent Thought Gallery

Turning adversity into opportunities

Shopping carts—that everyday fixture for every online store—has its origins in overcoming failure.

1934—the pitch of the depression. An entrepreneur named Sylvan Goldman bought several bankrupt Southern grocery stores. It was a risk. How to mitigate?

The new owner studied his customers shopping habits and observed: women (yep, back then men didn’t do it) shopped until their hand carried baskets were full. Then they checked out. Not folding in to frustration, inspiration struck. He built a solution (from 2 baskets, a folding chair, and several wheels). If you’re thinking of something reminiscent of a contemporary Japanese shopping cart, you’re there.

Testing, he placed several in the store. Nothing happened. Shoppers continued to carry the hand baskets. Creatures of habit, don’t you know?

Sylvan didn’t give up. He hired people to go in to the store, play the part of shoppers, and push around the carts full of groceries. Adding to this, he had employees offer in-coming shoppers the carts. He struck gold. Not just in incremental sales, though. Goldman garnered a fortune as he established the first shopping cart manufacturer: the Folding Basket Carrier Corporation. Personally, I’m glad the common name shifted to shopping cart; folding basket carrier would be a terrible online metaphor.

Not only did Goldman’s ingenuity make him a millionaire a number of times over, it also made possible retail business models not previously possible, such as super markets and big-box retailers. Hard to picture those as successful with clientele restricted to totting their purchases in hand held baskets.